Following developments in digital broadcasting, data broadcast program contents are being produced in large quantities and multiplexed with broadcast programs to provide data broadcast program transport streams for broadcasting by broadcast stations.
Current forms of ground wave television broadcasting use a net distribution system, according to which broadcast programs produced by a key station are distributed to local stations, which then broadcast the broadcast programs as distributed (i.e. in an unaltered state). Likewise, in satellite broadcasting, a CATV station receives satellite broadcasts, and then retransmits the received satellite broadcasts to household CATV receiving devices.
However, in the case of data broadcast programs, a system of distributing data broadcast programs to a plurality of broadcast stations, as is possible with the net distribution used in ground wave television broadcasting, is not yet available.